Rideau Street merchants painted an alarming picture Monday of crime and disorder during the 2017 tourist season, calling for Ottawa police to increase foot patrols in the area.

Peggy DuCharme, executive director of the Downtown Rideau B.I.A., presented a package of nine letters to Ottawa’s police services board, making it clear the force’s new “service model”, implemented about a year ago, is not working very well.

DuCharme said there are now only four foot patrol officers on duty to cover the entire central area of the city and many of her 650 members have noticed the decreased visibility. A bump in tourism for Canada’s 150th birthday and the opioid crisis only served to underline the problem this summer.

Members had a litany of complaints.

“Over the last three years, Les Suites Hotel has had to implement extra security measures in our building to deter crime as it has increased exponentially,” wrote Chris Pierce, the general manager of the Besserer Street property.

“We constantly receive guest feedback regarding our “unsafe” area and have had guests assaulted off property. This is definitely not conducive to tourism,” he said, adding he is a resident of the area, too.

“The amount of crime I witness is alarming.”

The supporting letters came from high-end retailers like Nordstrom — expressing “great concern” — to small owner-operator hotels, to discount chains like Giant Tiger.

GT’s Kevin Jackson wrote a letter saying that even when 911 is called, the response can be slow.

“A customer was seen leaving the store with a large amount of unpaid merchandise and then proceeded to sit on the benches at the corner of George and Dalhousie Street. Police were called but there were no officers available to apprehend the suspect.”

Nor is it a new problem, he wrote. “The crime statistics for this area are vastly under-reported as many businesses and residents have given up calling them in.”

The whole hotel industry is worried. “Many hotels are clearly concerned and some have stopped recommending Downtown Rideau and ByWard Market as tourism destinations after dark due to safety concerns,” wrote Steve Ball, president of the Ottawa Gatineau Hotel Association.

DuCharme said its street “ambassadors” have kept track of nuisance complaints and some crime stats this summer. Police were so rarely seen on foot, she said, the association thought the patrols had been eliminated entirely.

She said members also heard from area residents concerned about the pop-up injection site that suddenly appeared in a Lowertown park.

“There is a sense of lawlessness. Anything goes and nothing will get done about anything.” She said there was a “brazen” aspect to the crimes, like thieves walking straight out of stores with armloads of merchandise, or open drug use.

Ottawa police Supt. Joan McKenna has met with the BIA in the area. She said there is a community police officer for greater Rideau Street and pointed to a number of drug busts that have been made this year. She also said the new model includes a better online reporting system and greater police presence for special events like the La Machine event this summer.

The summer season is also bolstered with bicycle patrols, she added. “We are well aware of the issues they are raising.”

DuCharme said internally gathered data show a sharp rise in the number of ambulance calls to the area, a lack of attention to panhandlers and more outreach to the city’s 311 number for bylaw infractions.

The BIA is looking for enhanced visibility during mid-afternoon to mid-evening, at heavily used transit stops and near locales like marijuana shops and drug-injection sites.

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